two get to Coilantogle ford."

And as she was not forbidden, she went on; while Charity got the
spice-box she had come for, and left the room superior.

The "Lady of the Lake" was read through. Mrs. Barclay had hoped to draw
on some historical inquiries by means of it; but before she could find
a chance, Lois took up Greville's Memoirs. This she read to herself;
and not many pages, before she came with the book and a puzzled face to
Mrs. Barclay's room. Mrs. Barclay was, we may say, a fisher lying in
wait for a bite; now she saw she had got one; the thing was to haul in
the line warily and skilfully. She broke up a piece of coal on the
fire, and gave her visitor an easy-chair.

"Sit there, my dear. I am very glad of your company. What have you in
your hand? Greville?"

"Yes. I want to ask you about some things. Am I not disturbing you?"

"Most agreeably. I can have nothing better to do than to talk with you.
What is the question?"

"There are several questions. It seems to me a very strange book!"

"Perhaps it is. But why do you say so?"

"Perhaps I should rather say that the people are strange. Is _this_
what the highest society in England is like?"

"In what particulars, do you mean?"

"Why, I think Shampuashuh is better. I am sure Shampuashuh would be
ashamed of such doings."

"What are you thinking of?" Mrs. Barclay asked, carefully repressing a
smile.

"Why, here are people with every advantage, with money and with
education, and with the power of place and rank,--living for nothing
but mere amusement, and very poor amusement too."

"The conversations alluded to were very often not poor amusement. Some
of the society were very brilliant and very experienced men."

"But they did nothing with their lives."

"How does that appear?"

"Here, at the Duke of York's," said Lois, turning over her
leaves;--"they sat up till four in the morning playing whist; and on
Sunday they amused themselves shooting pistols and eating fruit in the
garden, and playing with the monkeys! That is like children."

"My dear, half the world do nothing with their lives, as you phrase it."

"But they ought. And you expect it of people in high places, and having
all sorts of advantages."

"You expect, then, what you do not find."

"And is all of what is called the great world, no better than that?"

"Some of it is better." (O Philip, Philip, where are you? thought Mrs.
Barclay.) "They do not all play whist all night. But